New Zealand fashion and lifestyle blog

The legend behind the label

For those familiar with British Vogue, Justine Picardie is a recognisable name, being the former Features Editor. With that pedigree, she is the perfect person to bring this biography of perhaps the most famous fashion designer to life in Coco Chanel…

COCO CHANEL: THE LEGEND AND THE LIFE by Justine Picardie

(HarperCollins UK)

For those familiar with British Vogue, Justine Picardie is a recognisable name, being the former Features Editor. With that pedigree, she is the perfect person to bring this biography of perhaps the most famous fashion designer to life.

What’s different abut this book is its unravelling of myths; the myths that Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel wrapped her own life in.

Picardie starts off by describing Chanel’s home as it remains today, above her Paris salon, to set the scene of Mademoiselle’s boudior filled with inspiring Oriental screens and lined with artworks and books. Picardie pays great attention to detail, drawing the reader in so you are in Coco’s room with her, left now as a shrine to its owner.

The tale then traces Chanel’s very humble beginnings – born in a poorhouse to an unmarried mother and upon her death left in a convent with her two sisters – through her love affairs, rise to fame and fashion icon status, and death in 1971.

The illustrations and photographs really bring the biography to live. It was fascinating to see the comparative photos of the convent Abbey stained glass windows C patterns, adjacent to Chanel’s double C logo that it inspired.

I never knew of the rumour that Chanel had a baby boy to early lover Etinenne Balsan which she claimed was her nephew. Others said she had an abortion which left her infertile. The story then goes through her love affair with Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel, an affair detailed in the 2009 film Coco Avant Chanel.

This is an interesting read for anyone, but particularly for lovers of fashion and the queen of chic style.

Megan Robinson.


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